Rafael Yglesias - Hot Properties

“Better pack up, David,” said Bill Kahn, deputy senior editor of Nation, walking into David’s office on Friday at dinnertime. Kahn was the fellow whose deficiencies as a potential senior editor of Nation David and Chico had discussed so confidently only four days ago.

David smiled while continuing to glance over the latest rewrite of his cover story, checking to see if he had dealt with all of Chico’s irritable changes. “Yeah. I’ve been fired? Just in time. I’ve had it with this bullshit.”

“No. Worse than fired. This guy Rounder, he only likes stories about cheerleaders or how to get rid of crabs without your mom finding out you had ’em.”

David got serious. He put the blues down and looked at Kahn. “Is it really that bad?”

“Listen, some people think we may not cover the eighty-four election.”

Kahn was smiling, but he meant it, David knew. “Have you seen Chico?”

“What’s left of him. Guy’s only about three feet tall now.”

David laughed. Chico’s size did seem to fluctuate depending on his fortunes as a Marx Brother.

“Haven’t you seen him?” Kahn asked. “You’re doing the cover.”

“No, I’m just getting changes from Syms.”

Kahn glanced toward Syms’s office and lowered his voice. “Everybody says he’ll be gone too. They think Rounder’s gonna clean out all the senior editors and bring in happy-time news bozos from New South.”

Kahn left after ten minutes of gallows humor, climaxing with his claim that the only reason they might cover the eighty-four election was that the incumbent was a former actor. In a low voice, glancing suspiciously toward the hall, he wrapped up his analysis: “You know why she brought in an outsider? To get rid of the deadwood. Rounder doesn’t owe anybody anything, so he’ll willingly play the part of hatchet man. You’ll be all right. But fat old drunks like me — we’re gone.”

Kahn walked out and then spoke to the other cubicle offices in a stentorian voice: “ ‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ ”

That was greeted with game laughter and David knew what they all knew: threats of change always exceeded the eventual reality. Kahn saying he expected to be fired was a lie; he was upset because he knew Rounder being hired meant he would probably become irrelevant, pensioned into a job that only a few weeks before he thought was a rung on a ladder, and now had become the zenith of a rather small ascent. For David, Rounder’s hiring meant something similar. Chico would not become a major power, and therefore David’s promotion might never come.

David’s cover story was closed early, by nine o’clock on Friday. But the usual excitement that accompanied finishing a cover successfully was absent. In general that week, the actual putting together of Newstime had been neither news-worthy nor timely.

Although Tony had flirted relentlessly during dinner, still he was surprised when Lois boldly announced outside Joe Allen’s valet parking that she should take Tony to the hotel, since she lived in Benedict Canyon and it was right on the way. Billy and Helen nodded quietly. Tony knew they would be suspicious; their place was also on the way. But that didn’t matter — since their suspicions would be about her, and besides, he hadn’t decided to fuck her, he had merely wanted her to want him.

In her BMW he stared at the digital clock, amazed that it was only eleven-thirty. Stupidly, he had to slowly count the time difference to realize it was two-thirty in the morning for his body. Lois pulled away sharply from the curb, her bony hand arched above the shift knob, so that she gripped it with her long fingers.

“Tired?” Her voice was cool, distant.

Maybe he was wrong. This might just be taking home the boss’s son, ordinary brownnosing, not the sexual kind. Anyway, that was all wrong. Lois knew, or must, that Tony wasn’t close to his mother. He had shocked them over dinner with the revelation that his parents had found out about his trip from other people in the business and that Tony hadn’t returned their messages when he arrived in his hotel room.

“You don’t like your parents?” Billy’s girlfriend, Helen, had asked.

“They’re great material for my plays — but I don’t want to be an actor in their drama,” Tony had said, consciously pretentious about it, because somehow he knew that would impress Lois. It had. He remembered the look of wisdom and approval in her eyes, as if she were saying: “You’re so right. I understand.” But his line was bullshit. He meant to call his mother and father during those three days in New York after he knew his itinerary, but kept finding trivial excuses not to. He wanted to have tomorrow’s meeting with Garth before speaking to them. Why? He didn’t know.

Lois laughed. “You must be tired.”

“What?” he said, startled. “I’m sorry. No, I’m not tired. I’m sort of — I guess this is jet lag. My legs want to sleep but my mind wants to see the city.”

“But you know LA.”

“Not as an adult. Not really.”

“You want to get a drink somewhere?” she asked tentatively. She meant more than merely a drink. He knew it from the slight edge of scared girlishness that crept in. She felt exposed by the question.

“Does LA have a nightlife?” he stalled. Not because he hadn’t decided — it was just a drink after all, no matter what she thought: he could always cool off later. He delayed because he wanted to tease her slightly. See how eager she was.

“Not really. It has comedy clubs, discos, and massage parlors.”

“No Elaine’s?”

“I guess there’s Spago’s.”

“No jazz clubs? No bourgeois nightlife?”

“I don’t think so,” she said doubtfully. She was embarrassed by her city’s failure to provide sophistication in this circumstance. Tony knew he had her on this score: she had made it in television; it bred insecurity when faced with a tired, cynical New Yorker. At least it would until she was forty, when the simple pleasure of having money usually overcomes any doubts about its environment.

“Amazing,” Tony said.

She glanced at him. “No drink?”

She was eager enough. “Oh yes. Sure. But where?”

There was a pause. Then, in a cool tone: “We could go to my house.”

“Okay,” Tony said, like someone concluding an amiable negotiation. They were on Sunset by now, leaving Hollywood’s garish billboards and bold hookers and giving way to quiet rows of tall palms. She took a right and they began their ascent onto one of Beverly’s hills.

Patty lay on her bed staring at the stuff from Shadow Books. It had been too good to be true. Sure, as Betty had predicted, they did pay five thousand for a romance novel, the plots and characters were all a matter of formula, but Patty would have to write something on spec in order to land an assignment. Joe McGuire, the top editor (“word processor” might be more accurate) of Shadow Books, had been sweet. He said normally they asked for an entire novel before making a commitment, but all he would ask of Patty — since Betty thought so highly of her — was a sample chapter and an outline.

So now she lay on the bed surrounded by titles like Dark Harvest, clutching a guide sheet from Shadow Books on what elements ought to be in a romance novel.

But it wasn’t so bad. She felt excited, like the first day of school. The formula was so rigid that the task seemed easy, and a sample chapter would mean no more than twenty pages. Surely she could do that in a few days.

Her phone rang and she picked it up expecting that it would be Betty — widowed by Tony’s trip to the Coast and curious about Patty’s reaction to the material. It was David.